Folks, we’re in the midst of performance appraisals again. Yes, I used the dreaded ‘appraisal’ word because it heavily embedded in our culture. But I wish that it wasn’t about appraisal in the sense of judgement. It makes employees nervous and fretful, and gives managers headaches about what to say, how to say it, and how to deliver bad feedback.

I recently read an article in WIRED about how we are all geared to react to feedback loops – and it made a lot of sense. Feedback loops are present everywhere, even if we don’t realize it. They all use the information we freely give them and regurgitate that information back to us in a meaningful way that encourages us to take action. We look for comments on our status updates.

Although not a Broadway fan, (I think the last Broadway show I actually saw was 'Showboat' , you know the 'Ol Man River one), I am a big comics fan, and such have been casually following the saga of the 'Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark ' show, a Broadway musical adaptation of Marvel Comics most famous hero. Last week Ms. Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you. But, as Ms.

Weekly Wrap: Poll Shows Succession Planning as Really Bad, Getting Worse. John Hollon takes a look at the miserable state of succession planning. Most companies don’t and the number who don’t is increasing. Of course, there’s no such thing as a company that doesn’t do succession planning. The question is whether it is a formal process or done informally. People with an administrative bent want to see it done according to rules and regulations. More structured planning produces better results, they opine. HRExaminer

Years ago, there is a motorola executive was speaking to a group of students. He asks the students to answer a couple of simple questions, “who among you owns a motorola cell phone?. small group of students raise their hands. He continues to as them, “who among you own a Nokia cell phone?. The large population of remaining students raise their hands. They go on to discuss why the students own Nokia cell phones, and the executive explains how much better Motorola’s technology is than Nokia. should mention here once more that this was all years ago. Sometimes its the image.
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This is worth a moment of your attention. If you are a journalist or blogger and plan on being in Las Vegas for SHRM next week, you should put this on your calendar. got the following note the other day. hadn’t been following the issue closely (though the folks at ERE tell me it’s been gurgling for a while.) A significant number of ex SHRM Board Directors, ex SHRM Foundation Board Chairs, State and local leaders and key figures (like Gerry Crispin and Jac Fitz-Enz) are really dissatisfied with a series of things that are going on at SHRM HQ. He was really good at it. HRExaminer
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Internet robots are one major contributor to job pollution, a growing issue for job seekers and hiring companies alike. Having spent the past 15 years in recruiting I hear a lot of stories. Smile. Some are stories from candidates about their experience and qualifications while others are from vendors who have the next ‘best thing’ to solve my hiring problems. heard some interesting points from TheLadders recently which led to more conversation. There’s a lot wrong with the system. Some experts state there are now more than 40,000 job boards. TheLadders is doing something about job pollution.
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Mental illness faced by 45% of Canadian workers, managers – Health – CBC News. This is from a conference board study that shows 1 in 10 currently suffering some form of mental illness and another 1/3 reporting past history. You can easily imagine that these numbers are understated. After all, mental illness is a pretty taboo topic. The interesting question for HR is how well our programs address the issue and its consequences. Certainly, there’s no shortage of education and training that can be brought to bear on the subject. HRExaminer
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